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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25630531">A Passing Glance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnaliseGrey/pseuds/AnaliseGrey'>AnaliseGrey</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode: c02e102 Ghosts Dinosaurs and Stuff, Ficlet, Gen, Spoilers, accidental scry, but not intended, shadowgast if you squint, unintentional discord prompt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:14:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,090</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25630531</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnaliseGrey/pseuds/AnaliseGrey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He intends to aim his scry on one of the others, one he knows he has a chance of success with, but at the last second his focus veers towards Caleb, Essek’s thoughts of the man drawing his focus and intent in the direction he realizes too late will be met with inevitable failure. He’s already preparing to drop the spell and try again when to his shock, the <i>spell locks on</i>.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>152</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Passing Glance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Prompted accidentally by someone in the Widomauk discord realizing that without the necklace, Essek would be able to scry on Caleb for the first time, and that sparked this.</p>
<p>Short, barely a full ficlet, but here we are.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s foolishness.</p>
<p>Essek knows, from previous experience, that it’s a useless task, one predestined for failure. When the Mighty Nein had first taken up residence in Rosahna, he’d of course done his due diligence, scrying on the newcomers, making sure they were as honest as any band of intrepid adventurers from an enemy nation could be expected to be- hopefully more honest than he was himself.</p>
<p>It was easy, to idly watch them as they went about their days in what was quickly named the Xhorhaus. He hadn’t really caught anything, nothing concerning enough to bother the Bright Queen with, certainly. The only interference he found was Caleb.</p>
<p>Or rather, not found.</p>
<p>He’s never been able to scry on Caleb as with the others, and it hadn’t taken him long to guess that the odd blurry area near the rest of the Nein that they sometimes spoke to must be the wizard. It had been a few weeks more before Essek saw the necklace, an amulet of some kind, and the inability to see the man made more sense. If Caleb is running from the sort of people Essek <em> thinks </em>he’s running from, any way to keep himself hidden would be a boon.</p>
<p>Now, the war over, a tentative peace between nations, his safety relatively secured, Essek finds, much to his consternation, that he’s <em> lonely.</em> He knows the Nein have gone somewhere off the Menagerie Coast, for Jester’s Travlercon, something about a volcano, which sounds just as insane as he’d expect from this group. It’s been quiet, and he finds himself irrationally longing for the chipper peal of Jester’s voice in his head, for the sound of someone- <em> anyone </em>- other than himself nearby. He has the ability to Send himself, but it feels oddly forward to reach out to them, especially with the Nein knowing what he’s done. They’d seemed accepting of him, if still wary, and he finds himself wishing they’d be a little more suspect, if only for their own safety.</p>
<p>As the hours pass in his tower, and the quiet of night becomes more absolute as the neighborhood settles around his estate, he drifts up towards his library, to find the small crystal ball that rests on a stand near a comfortable chair. He settles in, Prestidigitating the dust from the small orb. He hasn’t used it much of late, instead using the one in his office in the Bastion, but the cool smoothness of it soothes him as he settles in and casts.</p>
<p>He intends to aim his scry on one of the others, one he knows he has a chance of success with, but at the last second his focus veers towards Caleb, Essek’s thoughts of him drawing his focus and intent in the direction he realizes too late will be met with inevitable failure. He’s already preparing to drop the spell and try again when to his shock, the <em> spell locks on</em>.</p>
<p>He’s stunned as his projection darts forward, spanning miles unending to suddenly appear on a beach. It’s nighttime where Caleb is as well, and he appears to be in the midst of casting, the small dome of a tiny hut spell already popped up around him. There’s a swirl of green lustrous powder that lifts up to the air as Caleb completes his somatic gesture, and images appear around the walls of the hut, the green of the powder transitioning to the soft golden amber that Essek associates with Caleb’s magic.</p>
<p>Essek wants to focus more on the images, on what Caleb’s chosen to create, but he’s still stunned by the fact he can see Caleb at all. He looks closer, and hums in dismay. The open collar of Caleb’s shirt shows his neck to be bare, the necklace he uses to remain hidden missing, and a cold thrill of fear shocks through Essek’s system, almost knocking him from the scry.</p>
<p>His interest had been idle, concerned, and he’d still tried, knowing it would result in failure.</p>
<p>If the people after Caleb are as dangerous as he suspects, as dangerous Caleb warns them of, then this is a problem, and a very big one.</p>
<p>He finishes out the duration of the scrying, watching Caleb speak quietly to Veth, then call the others inside the hut as well, a soft smile on Caleb’s face as he gestures and explains something about the images helping them remember. There’s a woman with them, someone he doesn’t recognize, perhaps one of the Traveler’s other followers, but the Nein don’t seem concerned, and so he isn’t either.</p>
<p>The spell ends, and he settles back in his chair, blinking to clear the images of dark shores that still sit uncomfortably in his mind.</p>
<p>What does he do?</p>
<p>Does he wait, assuming that they’ll call if they need assistance? They’ve done it before, and he doubts they’d be shy about it now. Does he Send a message himself, asking if they need help? That will be suspicious- he has no reason to think they’re in danger other than the lack of Caleb’s necklace, and he can’t reveal his knowledge of <em> that </em>without admitting he’d been spying on them.</p>
<p>Brow furrowing, he rises from the chair again, and heads to his lab.</p>
<p>He’s glad to have met the Mighty Nein, pleased that despite everything they still consider him worthy of friendship, even with all the reasons he’s given them to distrust him and his intent. He has very rarely in his life known people that caused him such intense agitation and insecurity; it’s frustrating and exhilarating in equal measure.</p>
<p>An hour or so later and he gives up on attempting to work. He’s distracted, annoyed at the inability to focus. Even if he were to contact them, to ask if they need anything, he’s disinclined to do it now, when they’re sleeping. If they’re in danger they will need their rest, and he will not be the one to interrupt it.</p>
<p>Readying for bed, Essek’s thoughts circle, one on another on another until all he has is a tangled web of half-formed ideas. It’s giving him a headache.</p>
<p>He settles in for his trance, focusing on the feel of the here and now, trying to put any thought of the Mighty Nein, of <em> Caleb</em>, from his mind, telling himself he <em> will </em> contact them, just not now. Tomorrow.</p>
<p>Everything will be better in the morning, his thoughts clearer, more easily sifted through. It has just been a long and confusing evening, is all.</p>
<p>His trance is a long time in coming.</p>
<p> </p>
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